Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/130

116 skill to carry her point. Of all our Presidents, Washington alone, had power to keep the jealousies of his countrymen in check; and he used his influence nobly.—Some of his successors have cherished those jealousies, and made effective use of them.

The people of the North have to manage a rocky and reluctant soil; hence commerce and the fisheries early attracted their attention. The products of these employments were, as they should be, proportioned to the dexterity and hard labor required in their pursuit. The North grew opulent; and her politicians, who came in contact with those of the South with anything like rival pretensions, represented the commercial class, which was the nucleus of the old Federal party.

The Southerners have a genial climate and a fertile soil; but in consequence of the cumbrous machinery of slave labor, which is slow for everything, (except exhausting the soil,) they have always been less prosperous than the free States. It is said, I know not with how much truth, but it is certainly very credible, that a great proportion of their plantations are deeply mortgaged in New York and Philadelphia. It is likewise said that the expenses of the planters are generally one or two years in advance of their income. Whether these statements be true or not, the most casual observer will decide, that the free States are uniformly the most prosperous, notwithstanding the South possesses a political power, by which she manages to check-mate us at every important move. When we add this to the original jealousy spoken of by Mr Madison, it is not wonderful that Southern politicians take so little pains to conceal their strong dislike of the North.

A striking difference of manners, also caused by slavery, serves to aggravate other differences. Slave holders have the habit of command; and from the superior ease with which it sits upon them, they seem to imagine that they were "born to command," and we to obey. In time of war, they tauntingly told us that we might furnish the men, and they would furnish the officers; but in time of peace they find our list of pensioners so large, they complain that we did furnish so many men.